Page 7 of Want You Back (Second Chance Ranch #1)
Chapter 7
Maverick
Now
“Do you want to flip me for the primary bedroom?” Faith swept into the kitchen at the ranch house where I was helping myself to the dregs in the coffee pot. Her loaded-down SUV sat next to my own overstuffed car. We’d each returned home to take care of things so we could spend an indefinite amount of time at the ranch. By some miracle, we’d arrived back here within a half hour of each other.
“You go right ahead.” I finished pouring the leftover coffee over milk and ice. In LA, I had a pricey daily coffee habit, but here, I made do with my improvised cold brew since the nearest barista was a forty-minute drive away.
While we’d been gone for a few days, Faith had arranged for a cleaning service based out of Durango to come and pack up the bulk of our father’s things, a task neither of us wanted to confront yet. We’d get to the boxes. Eventually. But in the meantime, no way was I taking over a room I’d never felt comfortable entering. “This place has enough bad vibes without me actively courting more.”
“Hey, this is what he wanted.” Faith stamped a high-heeled sandal onto the tile floor. I had no idea how she drove in those let alone navigated the uneven terrain surrounding the ranch house. “Dad drafted the will to force us to spend time here. His ghost should be delighted that I want that balcony and view.”
“It’s all yours.” I gestured toward the back staircase. “I’m perfectly fine in the downstairs guest suite.”
Like the kitchen and great room, the downstairs guest suite was a more modern addition to the house. When I was younger, Brita and a succession of other cooks and housekeepers had occupied the space, but my father hadn’t managed to keep anyone on full-time in years. While the crew was here cleaning and packing up Dad’s things, I’d had the guest suite painted white and a basic queen bed delivered in an attempt to live with as few memories as possible.
“I’m staying in my mom’s old room, but I’m taking down her princess pictures.” Hannah, Faith’s thirteen year-old daughter, entered the kitchen carrying two duffel bags, a backpack, and wheeling a pink suitcase. She was the product of my sister’s second society marriage, a disinterested oil baron who was good for little more than writing child support checks. Somehow, despite the divorce and all the other ups and downs in her young life, Hannah remained one of the most optimistic creatures I knew.
“Excellent plan.” I relieved her of the bags. “Do you want help?”
“Sure.” She headed toward the stairs only to whirl back at me, gesturing so widely that the suitcase wobbled. She had her mother’s coltish long limbs and graceful hands, but somehow had ended up with my eyes, a fact I’d noticed from the earliest pictures Faith had sent. “I know! We can flip the room! Like on your show, Uncle Mav.”
“You’ve watched my show?” While I tried to be a decent uncle, sending unique gifts for birthdays and Christmases, I couldn’t say as I was a particularly attentive one given our geographical distance, and I’d been unaware that Hannah even knew what I did for a living.
“Only every episode.” She gave me an epic eye roll. Abandoning her bag, she danced around the dining room, pointing at various objects. “‘That must go! And that! So dated! Oh my, who would want to stay here?’” She did a fairly decent, if overly animated, imitation of me walking through a property for the first time. “If I have to spend a whole summer here, it would be fun to give the room a makeover.”
“Indeed.”
I didn’t mind taking on a project to make one of my favorite humans happy and distract myself too. If nothing else, this summer would give me the opportunity to be the sort of uncle I’d always intended to be. And I welcomed the design challenge. During my time in LA, I discovered the fun of taking something dated and turning it into a welcoming space for guests. Every remodel had seemed to carry me further and further from this place and my father’s intractable refusal to embrace change.
After several hours and a trip to the nearest store carrying bedding, we successfully stripped Faith’s old room of all its princess overtones, remnants from when my mother had originally decorated the space. A long-buried memory surfaced of her with a sewing machine, whipping up throw pillows and décor for our rooms. My chest pinched, removing taffeta and tulle accents Mom had likely fussed over. But if I’d learned anything in the decades since losing her and Mel, it was that time relentlessly marched forward, turning what was once beautiful into dust catchers.
Besides, Hannah had a distinct taste of her own, and imposing Faith’s style of twenty-five years prior would have been cruel. Instead, selecting galaxy-themed bedding and decor was fun, and the addition of all the purples and blues made the pale-pink walls seem more celestial. We’d discovered a huge package of glow-in-the-dark stars, which had instantly captured Hannah’s imagination. I’d impulsively promised to put some on the ceiling.
“I need to find a stepstool or small ladder.” I frowned up at the high ceiling. I wasn’t short, but I could use Colt’s few extra inches right then. And why in the heck did I have to keep thinking about him? I hadn’t seen him since our encounter at the diner, yet he kept popping up in my brain with alarming regularity. I waved a hand as if that could shake the unwanted thoughts from my head. “I’ll be back.”
I headed downstairs, but the utility closet near the kitchen yielded only an inadequate black plastic step. A long-handled duster hung near the door, though, and I tucked that under my arm before continuing my hunt. Other downstairs closets also lacked a stepstool, leaving me little choice but to head for the one place likely to have what I needed.
I’d never liked the assorted barns and shops on the ranch. The main ranch house was closest to the long driveway from the main road. Beyond it, the drive led to the first of several barns, sheds, and a greenhouse, which surrounded the main house in a rough U-shape. Beyond the buildings were the cattle pastures and the crops with the land turning ever more rugged as one headed north past the pond into the rockier terrain.
The barns were big and drafty and kind of spooky. The ranch was best known for championship-caliber quarter horses, a sideline that had kept the ranch afloat in years when cattle and crops had been losing propositions. Accordingly, the horse barn was akin to a luxury hotel, only the best for these bloodlines. The horse barn sat farther back than the other buildings, up a small hill, with an attached riding arena and horse pastures. For all he’d neglected his fatherly duties, my dad pampered all his horses, working, breeding, and retired.
The pristine state of the horse barn always put me on edge, so I started with the older barn between the house and the bunkhouse. Its cluttered interior seemed more likely to yield a ladder. Dirt bikes, tractors, and other equipment jockeyed for space along with various supplies in stalls that had once housed livestock before the new barns were built. The space smelled like dirt, motor oil, and musty feed, a familiar yet unwelcome scent. I poked around gingerly in the front few stalls.
“Looking for something?”
“Uh.” I made an undignified noise at the sound of Grayson’s voice. The duster I’d been holding fluttered to the dirty floor. I gulped. I wasn’t a guilty kid sneaking around, and there was no one left for him to report me to. “I need a small ladder for a project at the house. I’m trying to reach the ceiling in Hannah’s room.”
“This way.” He jerked a thumb toward the back of the barn, leaving me to collect my duster. I followed his path, dodging machinery and watching my footing. Grayson was far more nimble for a bigger, older man, especially given his subtle limp. “I was looking for you anyway.”
“Looking for me?” I stopped short of stepping on a nearby rake, rocking back on my heels.
“You’re the ranch owner, right?” Grayson narrowed his stern gaze further. “The trust is paying the bills, and you can’t sell, but I figured you’d want to at least know about the business, weigh in.”
Appropriately humbled, I nodded. “Yes, of course.”
In actuality, I preferred the ranch stay a vague, theoretical enterprise where Grayson made all the decisions, but that was neither fair nor responsible. Damn it.
“First off, we’re down two hands. Not surprising that they put in elsewhere, thinking the ranch would be sold.” Grayson dug a small, paint-stained ladder out of a stall but didn’t hand it over. “I’ll put the word out, but honestly, we’ve been making do with too few hands for a while now. Retention wasn’t your dad’s strong suit.”
“I imagine not.” I sucked on my lower lip, sensing Grayson was looking for something more than commiseration. “I… We’ll need to ask the lawyers about the budget, but I trust your hiring decisions.”
“Good.” He gave a crisp nod before passing me the ladder. “Next, offers keep rolling in for the breeding stock—our biggest competitors smell blood in the water and are circling with lowball offers. I’m inclined to say we’re not selling off stock, business as usual. Wanted to run it by you though, in case you had a different thought.”
“No. Your thought is good.” Different industry, but I knew all about sharks looking to buy low and gobble up competition. “No need to devalue the market or sell just to sell. Are our current stud fees in line with others?”
“They could go up.” He pursed his lips, something approaching respect in his gaze.
“Do that.” I swallowed, immediately second-guessing whether I’d been decisive merely to earn more of Grayson’s approval. What did I truly know about horse breeding or running a ranch? “I think. Should I ask Faith?”
“Faith told me to ask you.” He yanked a red bandanna out of his pocket and wiped his forehead with it. “Keep to the quick answers. Trust your gut.”
“My gut has no idea what it’s doing,” I confessed as I followed him back through the barn. I’d gotten far in the hotel industry by learning the difference between when I could bullshit my way through and when I needed to admit ignorance. Here, though, I felt out of my depth entirely, my head swimmy from more than the June heat.
Grayson paused again near the cracked barn doors. “Sometimes, you just gotta head into the muck and start shoveling.”
“True.” I operated with a similar philosophy, and that attitude made it possible to plow through the work in Hannah’s room without getting lost in sentiment. “But what if I tell you the wrong thing? A lot more is riding on the ranch than my usual decisions regarding decor or hospitality services.”
“You’ll fuck up.” Grayson shrugged like he’d already accepted this conclusion. “Part of being the boss is being wrong. You know that.”
“Yeah.” I exhaled hard. I needed to make peace with being wrong, but I kept seeing my father’s frown. Melvin Lovelorn didn’t make mistakes, didn’t muddle through. Thanks, Dad, for the crippling case of perfectionism.
In the present, though, I addressed Grayson. “Thanks. For the ladder. And the pep talk.”
“No problem.” He gestured toward the horse barn. “Bring Hannah around the horse barn later. I’ll give her and you a tour of everything new.”
He’d phrased it as a casual suggestion, but I knew an order when I heard one. Grayson was determined to make a functional ranch owner out of me, which meant knowing the ranch’s operations. As I walked back to the ranch house, I couldn’t help but think of Colt, wondering if that was what he wanted too. And lord, that way led to all sorts of trouble. I couldn’t let myself care what Colt thought or want to make him proud. The goal was to survive the year, not lose myself to the past.